The Closet
by quiet-little-wallflower
Summary: Haymitch hires Hazelle to be his housemaid, on the condition she never opens the locked closet in his bedroom. Eventually Hazelle's curiosity gets the better of her, and what she finds inside is something that will haunt her for the rest of her life. Written for 'All Hallow's Eve" on the Starvation forum


Sometime in the future, in a land quite different to our own, there was a sweet young woman called Hazelle who lived in the seam. Her father was, like many of the men in the District, a coal miner, who laboured for hours in the sweltering depths below the surface of district 12, while her mother spent her time selling wares down at The Hob, the district's black market. Money was scarce, but the family scrapped by day to day.

When Hazelle turned eighteen, she knew the time had come for her to start pitching in and to help support the family. With three younger brothers and two younger sisters as well as her mother and father, their family was a large one and most definitely would have benefitted from a little extra money to line their pockets. The problem was that she had absolutely no idea where she wanted to work.

The women who worked in the mines were some of the strongest women in the district, both in mind and body, and if Hazelle was to be honest with herself, she really wasn't strong when it came to either of those things, at least not for that environment. She could have worked with her mother at her rag tag stall in The Hob, but Hazelle wasn't all that good at starting up a conversation and driving a hard haggler back into their box. Slowly but surely she began to despair, for it didn't seem as though any job would be suited to her once she left school.

One day, while Hazelle was sitting at home, pondering the workings of the universe her mother came home all flustered, a wide grin set across her face.

"Well Hazelle, I think I might have got a job lined up for you today!" She exclaimed, rubbing her hands together gleefully.

Hazelle shot up out of her chair, overjoyed with excitement, before recoiling slightly, suddenly worried that the job her mother had secured for her could be something awful. "What is it?" She asked nervously.

"Well," Her mother started, sitting herself down in the chair beside her. "You know that boy who won the games two years back? That Haymitch fellow?"

"Yes of course I do," Hazelle nodded, all too familiar with the boy who'd become a social recluse since winning his games.

"He came into the hob today, looking for white liquor and I started chatting to him while he waited for old May to get his share. It turns out the boy is in need of someone to clean his house for him and cook him meals and the likes. He's very lonely you see."

"Oh I can only imagine."

"Well I told him that you would be perfect for the job!"

That's…great." Hazelle had answered, almost reluctantly. She'd heard many things about Haymitch Abernathy. He was one of the main topics of conversation in the district for a time after he won his games, especially after his family home caught on fire and his girlfriend, mother and little brother all perished amongst the flames while he was busily attending a Victor's dinner with the Mayor. If you asked any of the biggest gossips in town how he dealt with it, they'd simply tell you he'd gone stark raving mad. Others said more sinister things, like perhaps he set the house on fire himself, the games having turning him into a bloodthirsty killer.

Hazelle preferred the rumours flying around that he was just a terribly lonely young man addicted to alcohol.

And so, a week after her mother had the conversation with him at the hob, Hazelle made her way down to the Victor's village and knocked on Haymitch's door.

She stood on his front doorstep feeling incredibly out of place. Everything about the village was tidy, the grass lawns neatly trimmed, the trees perfectly pruned and not a crack to be seen on any of the houses paint jobs. There was also an unbearable aura of loneliness in the air, and Haymitch's house, though apparently occupied, felt just as empty as all the others surrounding it, at least on the doorstep.

There was a long wait before he answered, and for a brief moment Hazelle thought about just turning on her heels and marching straight back to the village, but just as she was about to do so there was a loud thumping noise behind the door, followed by the sound of a glass breaking, before the door swung open and she was faced with Haymitch Abernathy, in the flesh.

From what Hazelle could remember from the few times she'd seen Haymitch before his games experience he'd been a handsome boy, with a wide friendly smile and slightly messy short brown hair. That boy had been replaced by a man with a face full of stubble, cold hard eyes and long, unkempt and for the most part unhealthy looking hair. He was, though she didn't want to admit it to herself, almost frightening in appearance.

"Are you the new maid?" he asked, slurring his words, and for the first time she noticed that he stank of alcohol.

"Yes, I'm Hazelle." She replied, her voice sounding far more timid than she'd expected it to.

"Come in then." He pushed the door open wide, so hard that it smacked loudly against the wall, and disappeared into the dark hallway. Hazelle followed tentatively.

At first she couldn't see anything at all in the dark, just a few outlines of things here and there. She began to wonder why he was sitting in the darkness, not even bothering to open the drapes on a day like this, when the sun was at its very best.

As her eyes adjusted to her dark confines, she struggled to contain her shock. The whole hallway was filled with rubbish. Mostly old empty bottles and torn apart pieces of newspaper, but there was just stuff everywhere! Even in the poorest part of the seam, where the grass grew high around rotten old carts and children's shoes littered the porches, there was never anything as filthy as this.

"Yeah I know, it's a bit out of sorts isn't it?" He mumbled, rubbing one of his hands through his greasy brown hair. "But that's why I've hired you."

"I suppose it is." Hazelle had answered, unable to look up from a glass bottle that had been smashed to pieces weeks ago, judging by how much dust had settled on its surface, as well as the unmistakable texture of sticky residue left on the floorboards.

There was an awkward silence that followed, Haymitch staring at her, she trying to hold his gaze, before he cleared his throat, the sound so sharp against the eerie silence of the house. "Well I better show you around then."

Haymitch led her through the house, and it made Hazelle feel quite sad. This home was so grand, more beautiful than even the mayor's, she was sure of it, and yet Haymitch was living like a pig in it and keeping it trapped in constant darkness. For the life of her she couldn't understand why anyone would ever neglect such luxury, especially after years of battling along in the seam like she knew he had.

He showed her the lounge area, which was at the moment also being used as a sort of wardrobe, because he was too lazy to take his clothes upstairs. He showed her the kitchen, where dishes covered every bench and the stench of rotten food and mould hung heavy in the air. Each and every room was truly despicable, except for his bedroom. In there was just one unmade bed, a nightstand with one bottle of white liquor atop it and an old unused dresser beside a closet door, covered in dust.

"This my dear is where the magic happens." He slurred, and then added, after seeing Hazelle's shock at the statement, "This magic," picking the bottle of white liquor up and shaking it earnestly, before taking a decent swig of the stuff. "Now, I suppose we better discuss what will be needed of you. I need someone to cook dinner for me at least five days a week, maybe even lunch sometimes, because I don't think I can survive on just fluids of this kind for much longer. On the weekends I usually get a meal at the hob, so you needn't worry about that. Sound ok?"

Yes sir."

"Please," He said, screwing up his face. "Call me Haymitch. I think it's pretty obvious I'm no sir."

"Ok then, Haymitch."

"Much better Hazelle. Now as well as the meals, and I know this is asking a lot considering the state the house is in, but I'm hoping you'll help keep the place presentable…You know, tidy and stuff."

"Only if you promise not to make a terrible mess of it on the weekends."

He smiled at her, only slightly, but it was a smile nonetheless. "You know what, I like you, but I can't promise you that. What I can promise is that on the weekends I tear this place apart, I'll give you a pretty good bonus on the Monday. Does that sound alright?"

"I guess it'll have to."

"Good, then we're all set." He pulled a set of keys out of his pocket and went to hand them to her, but at the last second pulled them back, his face grave. "There is one last thing. This is the only set of keys I own, and seeing as the Capitol has refused to give me a second set, you'll be in charge of them during the week and hand them over to me on a Friday night. They open every room in the house, and feel free to do so, however…" He trailed off, flicking one small key into the palm of his hand, "Don't use this one. It opens the closet door and I'd prefer that it remained locked at all times. Understood?"

Hazelle didn't quite understand why he was worried about her snooping through a closet, especially since there certainly wasn't anything this man seemed to be hiding, given the state of his house, but she nodded as earnestly as she could. "Of course. No problem."

"Fantastic. Now if you don't mind, get out of my house. It's Sunday and I like to drink myself into Oblivion."

For the next three months Hazelle did as she was paid to do, she cooked and cleaned for him, as well as locked his house up when she left, usually a bit before dusk. In the early morning she'd sometimes look at the closet and wonder why it was so important to him that it was kept shut, especially after she came to the realization that the reason his clothes were in the living room was not because he was lazy, but because he was keeping something else locked away in the place where they should have been.

As the months ticked by, Hazelle's curiosity began to grow more and more, and more.

When it came time for the Games and for him to go away as Mentor, he left her very strict instructions on an old sheet of butchers paper he'd no doubt pulled from the rubbish pile near the hallway, his favorite spot. At first Hazelle was a little hurt that he hadn't bothered to tell her in person, because in those past few months she'd grown to almost enjoy his company and felt like she deserved more than just a letter he wrote while drunk out of his mind. Then she just put that aside and read the damned thing.

_Hazzy dear, I'm off to la di da land for the games. You'll only need to clean the place the night after I leave and then give it a bit of a dust or something the day before I come back. I apologize in advance for the mess that I'm going to make on my return._

_I don't deal with my kid's deaths all that well._

F_rom Haymitch._

_P.S you'll still be paid for the full two weeks, don't worry about that sweetheart._

Her heart almost morphed into butterfly wings as she read over the word 'sweetheart' in his scratchy hand writing, before she forced it to behave itself. Haymitch Abernathy was not the kind of guy she should be getting all wound up about. She knew enough from the days spent in his presence that he would not only be a terrible husband, he'd be an even worse father. Those were two of the most important things Hazelle thought about when it came to the man that would eventually sweep her off her feet, and Haymitch ticked neither box.

No matter what her heart tried to tell her, she was not going to let it be him. Besides, he called _everyone _sweetheart. She was getting all giddy over nothing.

So she did what he asked in the letter, carefully cleaning every inch of the house that was left filthy in his departure, only stopping momentarily to stare blankly at the closet, like she did most mornings, when she turned the twisted sheets of his bed into something more presentable. She'd decided there was something dark and awful behind that door, she could feel it in her bones when she walked past it, like a cold wind rattling its way through her skin. Whatever was in there was something horrifying, she was certain of it.

And yet she so desperately wanted to know what it was.

For the next week she tossed and turned at night thinking about what it was he was hiding in there. In his absence the closet suddenly seemed more accessible, only on the grounds that he wasn't there, so he'd never know if she took a peek.

On the eighth day that he'd been gone she received a message from him, telling her he'd be home the next morning, and could she please make sure the house seemed, "Warm and welcoming". This was no surprise to Hazelle, she, like everyone else in the district had just watched the two children from 12 get slaughtered in the bloodbath only the day before, so she packed up her cleaning utensils, as well as some sleeping essentials, as it would be dark before she was finished setting the place up, and made a hasty journey to his home.

On arrival she put her personal items in the guest bedroom, which she was sure she'd been the only ever occupant of, and set about cleaning the house. There really wasn't all that much to do, just a spot of sweeping and some dusting, as well as making sure he had enough alcohol to get him through the next few days. Still, by the time she was finished trying to organize the place, all sunlight had vacated the district.

As she lay in her father's old shirt in the guest bed, trying in vain to fall asleep, her curiosity regarding what was hidden in the closet began to eat away at her.

"Stop it." She said aloud to herself. "That's none of my business."

_Oh, but it's the business of others that's all the more interesting, _her mind whispered back to her, and for a brief moment she wondered whether she was going insane. Then, in a moment of weakness she was sure to carry with her for the rest of her life, she climbed out of bed and made her way up the stairs into Haymitch's bedroom.

When his door creaked open and she entered the room, a strange sort of fear took hold of her, that only escalated when her eyes, after searching through the darkness, found the dark outline of the closet door. One half of her was adamant she should turn back and forget the whole thing, reminding her of the awful feeling she got when she passed the closet. _Whatever is in that closet can't be a good thing Hazelle, _she thought to herself, _otherwise he wouldn't keep it locked all the time._

In the end however, the desire to find out what could be so terrible for someone who'd gone through The Hunger Games, the worst thing Panem had to offer in the way of nightmares, that they had to keep it under lock and key, won out over common sense.

She took one small step towards it, then a second, followed by a much faster third. She kept taking teeny tiny little steps until she was right at the door and she practically fell against the thing, her heart hammering against her chest from a mixture of fear and excitement. She slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out the set of keys, flicked through them until she found the smallest one and then promptly inserted it into the lock.

One turn to the right and then Click! The door opened, making an eerie creepy sound as it teetered out towards her. She jumped backwards and held her hands up against her face, expecting something to jump out and claw at her, but nothing of that sort happened. The room stayed as dark and silent as it had in the moments before she opened the door, the only change being her faster breathing. Feeling a little bit more confident about the situation, she leant inside the thing –tentatively of course- and pulled the string light cord. The bulb dangling just above her head flashed on and off a few times, making her feel panicky, before finally staying on, it's dim light casting her shadow against the walls behind her. With a deep breath, she leant in and took a look at what he'd been hiding away.

The first things she saw were a selection of jackets, three in total, two of which obviously had belonged to a female. The third however was decidedly male, a dull sort of brown faux-suede looking thing with patches sewn onto it here or there, but it wasn't that which made it stand out against the others. It wasn't that which made her insides clench together uncomfortably.

It was a child's coat, two sizes smaller than the others.

As she stepped forward to run a hand along the Jacket's sleeve her toes hit something hard on the floor in front of her. When she looked down she found an old brown suitcase, its top covered in dust. She knelt down, wiped the dust away and then unlatched the sides.

What Hazelle found inside almost broke her heart in half.

There were three photographs, one of a middle aged woman with Haymitch's eyes, but full of the warmth Hazelle was sure she'd seen in his those few times she'd seen him before he was reaped. There was a younger girl, about her age, with short dark hair and wide, friendly looking grey eyes, and then there was a small photo of a boy, who looked like Haymitch only younger, and somehow different, his hair sticking up everywhere, a completely tangled mess.

Hazelle knew who these people were. They were his mother, brother and girlfriend, all of whom were long since dead and buried.

As she sifted through the suitcase she found a wide assortment of things belonging to the deceased; an old spinning top, a handkerchief with the letters A.H awkwardly stitched in the corner, a smooth white pebble and a folded up candy wrapper. Then her hand found something that felt foreign and strange; a memory card.

Hazelle knew there would almost certainly be some kind of film or footage on the card. Hazelle also knew that as the decent human being she was she should just put the thing back in the box, latch it up, lock the closet and return to the guest bedroom like nothing had ever happened.

Unfortunately, Hazelle wasn't feeling particularly decent that evening, so without a second thought she got to her feet and sprinted down the stairs and into the living room, almost tripping over a pile of Haymitch's clothes in the process. She plugged the card into the projector, curled up on the couch and biting her nails apprehensively waited for the film to start.

The wall came to life and presented her with three people standing in line against a granite wall in a room with heavy florescent lighting. As Hazelle squinted she realized the three were facing the wall, and that their hands were all tied behind their backs.

Her heart dropped somewhere down to about her ankles as a peacekeeper entered the frame and turned the three around to face the camera. They were Haymitch's loved ones, his brother, his mother and his girlfriend and they all looked terrified in a way Hazelle knew all too well from years of watching the games; they had the same look of absolute horror tributes have before they die.

Someone in the background said something, but the sound was too muffled to hear it.

Tears were streaming down the young girls face and the young boy, Haymitch's baby brother let out a terrified cry.

There was an awfully long stretch of silence that followed his cry and his mother turned her head to look at him, opening her mouth as though she were whispering a comforting word or two.

Then gunshots went off, fired off screen by the peacekeeper she'd seen seconds before, probably a few more as well, and the three fell into a heap on the ground, their bodies unmoving, all twisted around one another in a way a group of live people never could.

Hazelle screamed, and then when she'd done that she screamed again.

Her first scream was purely from the horror of it all, a reaction she had no power of controlling, something that just burst from her lungs. The second scream came only after she'd realized what this had all meant, only when she'd realized why Haymitch had morphed into such a sorry excuse for a human being since the death of his family. It was not just bad luck striking him twice that everyone he held dear to him had perished in a fire; that had merely just been a ruse. What had truly happened was much worse.

The Capitol had killed his family in cold blood, and for the life of her Hazelle couldn't understand why, so she screamed until she couldn't scream anymore.

The next day, upon his arrival home, Haymitch found his house perfectly tidy, with all the curtains open and a fresh vase of wildflowers waiting for him in every room. What he did not find waiting for him was Hazelle. Instead, beside a loaf of bread, some butter and a selection of fruits she'd left for his breakfast, was a letter folded in half in butcher's paper.

It read,

_Dearest Haymitch,_

_It causes me great pain to do this to you, but _unfortunately_ I have to resign. It is not because you are unreasonable, or a drunkard, or because you couldn't clean up after yourself even if your life depended on it. I want to make it clear that the problem here is not you, so don't think that. The problem is me. I broke the one rule you set me, and in doing so destroyed your trust, something which I feel can only be gained once more by my admittance of the act and resignation as your maid. I hope you understand, and I hope you can forgive me._

_I wish the best for you, _

_Hazelle._

That afternoon, Haymitch reopened the closet door and took the memory card out of the suitcase. He thumbed it around in his fingers and for a moment contemplated taking it down stairs and throwing it in the trashcan Hazelle had installed for him, before putting it back in its place and locking the closet up all over again.

He wasn't ready to let go of the pain, not just yet.

* * *

**A.N**

**Happy Halloween everyone! **

**This little piece is based on two fairy tales, one more so than the other. The one it is most heavily influenced by is a childhood favorite of mine, "Bluebeard", about a young woman who marries a man with a sinister secret hidden in a room she's been told never to open.**

**Which of course, she does.**

**The other, and this is only the slightest sort of influence, was none other than beauty and the beast.**

**I tried to write it in a simple, fairytale like structure, just for something different. I'm not a hundred percent happy with it, but well, it's the deadline day for the challenge I wrote it for so I'll just have to suck it up haha.**

**I took certain liberties with Hazelle's personality, because a) We don't get a enough of her in the books for there to be a clear picture of what she's like and b) I had to portray her in a way that suited the story. I'm sure my version here is a bit more timid and reserved than Hazelle actually would be, and that in reality she's got the same fire about her that Gale has. **

**Still, we could always assume that came with age, but I'm thinking things through too much.**

**All that aside, I hope its been a good read for you on Halloween. :)**

**{X_X} **


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